Medium Wiki:Manual of Style
For more general information, see the Wikipedia Manual of Style. This Manual of Style for Medium Wiki is a guide for editors on how to properly format Medium Wiki articles. General The Basics #Please categorize articles and insert navigational templates appropriately to ensure that Medium Wiki is a more orderly compendium of Medium knowledge. #Please do not insert a heading, such as Summary , if there is only a single heading within the article. Just don't put a heading until you feel the need to insert two, and then you may create two. #Whenever inserting pictures in "thumb" format, such as , be sure to add a caption like . # Refer to the Medium universe from a third-person perspective. #List all references at the end articles. It should not be: Allison DuBois said, and I quote this from Episode 11, "I used to watch the re-runs. They haven't shown it in years. I guess because of the scandal." Instead, use the reference tag if necessary, or else, write: " I used to watch the re-runs. They haven't shown it in years. I guess because of the scandal." (I Married a Mind Reader) #Refrain from using slashes whenever possible. Instead, work the word "or" into the sentence, or figure out some other way of stating it. Internal consistency An overriding principle is that style and formatting choices should be consistent within a article, though not necessarily throughout as a whole. Consistency within an article promotes clarity and cohesion. Stability of articles Editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable. Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, start a discussion on the talk page of the article and try to find ways to overcome the issue. Follow the sources Many points of usage, such as the treatment of proper names, can be decided by observing the style adopted by high-quality sources. Unless there is a clear reason to do otherwise, follow the usage of reliable English-language secondary sources on the subject. If the sources can be shown to be unrepresentative of current English usage, follow current English usage instead—and consult more sources. Clarity Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording. Remember, the encyclopedia is aimed at late high school, early college reading proficiency, and general educational levels. Articles should be fully comprehensible to non-specialists. Nomenclature There is tension between the academic approach that names and classifies by the perspective of the field, and the layman's approach that uses common names and classifies according to common practice. We should try to accommodate the layman's approach wherever possible. The longer technical name may be described in parentheses the first time it is used. Editing Use the Minor Edit button As a corollary to the above, if you're making a minor edit (e.g. fixing a spelling error or tweaking formatting), check the "This is a minor edit" button below the Summary box before saving the page. Again, this will make things easier for the rest of us. Use the Preview button The preview button is right next to the save edit button, and is there for a reason. It's your own personal spell checker, link checker, whatever-else checker. Use it. Users that purposefully do not preview edits as to inflate their edit count are not well regarded among editors, and you may find yourself in trouble with an administrator. Do not link to the current page In other words, a page should not link to itself. If it is attempted, the link will simply turn into bold text. Link once A given page should only contain one link to any other page. If a page links to Allison DuBois in one place, then that should be the only link to Allison Dubois on that page. Typically this link should be the first instance of the term in the article. Do not use conversational style This is an information site. It should read like Wikipedia, not like your diary. *Check your spelling and grammar. Do not use internet slang (ex. "How r u?" or "c u 2nite"). If you are not 100% sure about the way a word is spelled, type it into Google or Dictionary.com. If you know that you are not the strongest speller, compose your edits in a word processor like Microsoft Word or use an Internet browser like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, which has spell-checking built in. *Do not use "smileys" or "emoticons". *Do not "reply" to content others have posted. If you think a particular point warrants discussion, post on the article's Discussion page. If you're 100% sure that something should be changed and don't think a discussion is necessary, just change it. Dialogue goes only on articles' Discussion pages or the forum. *Never abbreviate the names of characters, places, or anything. Wherever possible, use the full name of a character the first time they are mentioned. Stubs If you don't know enough information on a topic, or you know there's more, add a stub to it. To do so, try this: : ; , , , And people will know that it's a stub by looking at the stub category. Generally the template is put at the bottom of the page. External Links External links are links that point to sites other than the Wiki. The links should be in the form of a bullet list. External links typically look like this: *[http://www.manual-of-style.com/filename.html Website: Article-Title] Headers/Headings as Links Never make a header title as links. Instead, utilize the Main Redirect Template and add it under the header. Additionally, avoid adding the Ref Tag to the header. Regional differences in Grammar/Spelling Please refrain from basing edits on the correction of English grammar or spelling as your society sees fit. There are many variations and all are correct. For example, "color" and "colour", "center" and "centre". Note that American English users use "-ize" or "-yze" whereas the British English users use "-ise" or "-yse". Content-specific Perspectives in articles When writing an article based on canon content, the author should do so from an in-universe perspective. This improves reader's immersion into the fantasy/drama series. In other words, imagine like a reference material that records everything in the universe. With that being said, the author should always use third-person writing and do so in past tense. Real-world content is the only exception to this and it must be written from an out-universe perspective. For example, plot summaries must use present tense to maintain the narrative. Chapter summaries summarize a chapter's events in a "this is what happens in this chapter" fashion, as opposed to a "this is what happened in that chapter" fashion. Remember to use out-universe style when referring to this specific information. :DO NOT include redundant phrases like "his ultimate fate is unknown" or "what happened to the ship after that is a mystery." Adding speculation As explained in the FAQ page, the wiki's stance is to present canon information and avoid promoting speculation as fact/official information. Speculations are still appreciated in the wiki; we heavily recommend all speculations and theories to be posted on the talk page of the article for community discussion. Signing pages Do not sign your edits All contributions are appreciated, but if every user left their mark on every contribution they made, the Wiki would be nothing but signatures. If you've made an edit that you're particularly proud of (such as a transcript or screenshot), the correct place to take credit is on your own user page. If you do not have a user account, we respect your anonymity, but your edits will remain anonymous, too. Do sign your Talk posts If you make a post on a discussion page, please sign it. If you have a user account, this is as easy as typing ~~~~ at the end of your post. If you don't have a user account, just sign it with your name or nickname so everybody can tell who's who when reading long conversations. Even better, create an account anyway and use the signature method described. There really is no reason not to if you're going to stick around. Category:Help Category:Policy